Interaction of material design elements for improved human tactile comfort

Abstract: When it comes to textiles and clothing, human comfort is usually seen as a fundamental need for clothing wearers. This study focuses on the segment of the tactile comfort of textiles. The aim of this study is to determine the effects of material engineering (in terms of different compositional and structural designs of materials used in the manufacture of sportswear) on human perception of the tactile properties of materials. In this study, the focus was placed on the bipolar attributes roughness-smoothness (S-R), which were evaluated by a group of volunteers. For the purpose of evaluation, a set of adequate sportswear materials were selected. The selection of materials was based on the criteria of representativeness (the materials must be representative of the sportswear manufacture), and diversity of yarns (use of different yarns such as standard and recycled polyester, addition of elastane component into the structure to improve the comfort and garment fit). In order to be able to compare the outcomes of the material evaluation conducted by recruited evaluators, additional instrumental measurements were carried out and placed in the context of the subjective results. A roughness tester was used for this part of the measurement. According to the results, the difference between the designed materials in terms of the observed attributes is significant. This leads to the conclusion that the selection of an unsuitable material from the group of investigated materials should lead to an unsatisfactory comfort level and possibly to a less successful performance of an athlete.

Keywords: Material, Design, Human, Sport, Comfort, Tactile

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004912

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